Basic math: Students with fewer advantages deserve more funding

Lawmakers have passed and sent to the governor the third on-time budget in a row. That in itself is worth celebrating.

Lawmakers have passed and sent to the governor the third on-time budget in a row. That in itself is worth celebrating.

But what's significant in the spending plan for the coming fiscal year is how Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislative leadership seized the moment and fundamentally changed how public education is funded in California.

Brown earlier had thrown down the gauntlet, demanding lawmakers go along with his plan to offer all students a basic level of educational support but pumping more into the state's poorest districts serving the state's most disadvantaged students.

Brown didn't get everything he wanted on this, and he was forced to compromise on other areas of spending, but the change fundamentally alters the long-standing, special interest backed rules of the game. Forget his push for high-speed rail or the disaster that is his dream of twin tunnels under the Delta, the funding change for education could be the legacy achievement of Brown's tenure.

School funding for years has been set by a stupefying complicated formula that doled out money on a per-pupil basis.

The per-pupil element remains but, under Brown's more simplified formula, funding ultimately will be based on one understandable factor: student need. And the needs of a child of farm workers growing up in a trailer park in the Coachella Valley are considerably different than those of a child growing up in San Marino whose parents work at Caltech.

This funding change parallels the change in the one-size-fits-all educational approach exemplified by the No Child Left Behind movement and its emphasis on standardized testing and rote memory at the expense of critical thinking and analysis.

Brown's plan makes sure every child in public school enjoys an adequate - though hardly extravagant - basic support.

Students who are disadvantaged, attend schools with subsidized school lunches and where non-English speakers are the norm will receive more.

But a major difference under the new plan is that much more control over how those funds are spent will go to local school boards and local school administrators. Gone will be many of the funding categories that locked in how state funds were spent and put local districts under a state microscope as they were spent.

Obviously, this change is not a perfect solution. It will not increase parental involvement in schools where it is lacking. It won't magically change the home environment of some students. It doesn't mean we can look forward to the day when non-English speakers do not present themselves at the schoolhouse door.

It does mean concentrating efforts where the most effort is needed. It means greater educational opportunity for students who now have less opportunity. And it means more local control over the whole process.

On that final point, a caveat: local control demands results. Less control from above means there must be more control from below.

Educational methods require time to develop and time to prove their worth. Once that time has passed, methods that aren't working should be jettisoned and replaced, not with new teaching fads, but with methods that have been tried and proven elsewhere.